Lot 1601: RYOZO TSUMAKI

RYOZO TSUMAKI
(B. 1974)
KYOKEI I; KYOKEI III;& Undulation on the Border between Two World C-1 signed, dated and inscribed in Japanese (on the reverse of each work)
three pencil and ink on paper, mounted on board
89.5 cm. diameter x 3.5 cm. (35 1/4 in. diameter x 1 1/2 in.); 90 cm. diameter x 3.6 cm. (35 3/8 in. diameter x 1 1/2 in.); 59 cm. diameter x 3.1 cm. (23 1/4 in. diameter x 1 1/4 in.)
Painted in 2009 (3)

Tokyo, Japan, Radium von Rontgenwerke AG, Ryozo Tsumaki-KYOKEI, 5-27 June, 2009.

Radium von Rontgenwerke AG, Ryozo Tsumaki- Kyokei, exh. cat., Tokyo, Japan, 2009 (Undulation on the Border between Two World C-1 &KYOKEI III, illustrated, cover & unpaged).

Ryozo Tsumaki's practice as a Shin-Buddhist monk strongly influences the subject and gentle depiction of mystical landscapes. Shin Buddhism does not observe practices to reach enlightenment but rather to contemplate our daily, quotidian, material existence. After noticing the deep folds and natural creases in a strewn piece of fabric, Tsumaki took this article as the subject of his Kyokei (border landscape) series, exemplifying a Shin-Buddhist's alternative perspective on the seemingly mundane. By utilizing pencil and ink as his principle mediums, the simplicity and dedication to his existential quest is magnified. The delicate velvety peaks and its enveloping misty cloud-like forms are not literal landscapes but a result of his complex deliberation on how a thin membrane-like film separates our world from a greater metaphysical world. The surface of the work itself acts as a circular window that allows for us to aerially peer into this parallel world while it, too, examines our own world.